The Wolf Within
by ThereIsWhovianOnYourPotterhead
Summary: Harry Potter, already speicial, is about to go through a whole lot more. Creature!Harry, Independent!Harry, Manipulative!Dumbledore, and NO PAIRING! (sorry)
1. Chapter 1: The Bite

**Authors Note:**

**Hello fellow fanfiction readers! This is my first story so be nice please. Also, since I don't intend to be arrested today: I don't own Harry potter, J.K. Rowling does.**

Chapter 1: The Bite

On an ordinary street in an ordinary part of London there was an ordinary house with a perfectly normal family. Oh wait! This family did have one teeny, tiny thing that makes them different, their nephew. Who, much to their displeasure, was a wizard. This very special little boy was even different in the wizarding world, for he was the only living person to survive the killing curse. In the wizarding world he was known by many names but first and foremost was Harry Potter; The-Boy-Who-Lived.

In this house with his relatives there was no love for Harry Potter. He was treated as a slave; one might even compare his treatment to that of an animal.

This particular afternoon he was set to work in the garden, trying to make it perfect so that he could escape the beating he was sure to receive if it was anyway else. Even if he tried his best every single time his aunt would always find something wrong with it. It was almost impossible to please his relatives. When his Aunt Petunia came out at near dark to check on his work he was covered in dirt and exhausted.

"Freak! What have you done this time you dirty little scoundrel!" she called "How did you mess up my beautiful garden this time!"

"N-n-nothing Aunt Petunia." He quietly replied, flinching as he did so.

Her scrutinizing eyes scanned over the garden looking for some little flaw to criticize. "look right here, this dirt is on the stones! Do you want the neighbors to think we're as dirty as your drunken parents! Tomorrow you'll do it again but this time you'll do it right!" her eyes lit up with a glint of cruelty and she said with a slow draw, "Since you _still_ haven't gotten it right, you can get ready for tomorrow by sleeping out here."

With that she slammed the door shut on poor Harry. Now its never a good idea to leave a little 9-year-old on their own outside because they might wander off. After getting over the shock, this was exactly what Harry did; he climbed right over the Dursleys' little picket fence and into the street.

He thought 'Well if I'm not getting any food from her i'll have to find something in the trash or something'. So as Harry scavenged the sun went down and the moon came up. The big round full moon provided plenty of light for Harry to find a trash can.

Harry heard screams of pain and whimpers that slowly turned from human to canine. He shuddered at the inhuman noises and thought that it was an owner and their dog getting attacked by a wild animal. So he went towards the noise to help them when everything in his body screamed for him to go the other way.

He came across one of the little sections of woods in Surrey and found a track to get to the center of it. As he followed the trail he saw another set of footprints that looked like the person that left them there was staggering. In the little plot of land he found a cabin. This cabin had a foreboding sense to it but even as his body strained to get away his heart pushed him onward.

He carefully pushed open the door and saw a mess of a room with claw marks and gouges marking up everything.

He called out, "Anyone there"

No answer, he tried again "Does anyone n-need any help." he stuttered out.

Then he saw another room that looked padlocked, but like any curious nine-year-old he tried to push it open and, to his surprise, it slowly creaked open.

Out of the darkness he heard a growl. A deep guttural sound that made the hairs on his arm stand up. He saw two amber pinpoints in the corner of the room that came slowly closer and turned into the eyes of a hulking wolf with deep black fur. The wolf suddenly lunged.

He screamed but no one could hear him because of the silencing ward that had been put up around the room. His magic pushed the wolf off of him but not before the wolf had taken a nip at his arm.

He ran out of there as fast as his short legs could carry him and thankfully the wards kept the wolf in the room.

The adrenaline only took Harry to the edge of the woods and then he collapsed. Unknown to him there was a war of dark curses in him.

On one side there was a Horcrux that Vodemort had put in him, the werewolf virus he was just infected with, and both a magic reducing curse and a tracking charm put there by Albus Dumbledore.

The Horcrux and the virus first fought against the curse and charm since it was the weakest of the three. Once the magic reducer was gone Harry's magic was free to fight the two curses. The Horcrux lost first and was destroyed. After that Harry's magic and the lycanthropy battled each other into exhaustion. The weakened version of the curse latched onto his magic in a desperate attempt at survival. His magic was too weak to fight it off, and so that's how Harry Potter became even more different than before.


	2. Chapter 2: The Recovery

**Authors Note:**

**I know my last chapter was incredibly short and I am sorry but it was my first soooo… Any who here is my disclaimer:**

**Roses are red,**

**Violets are blue,**

**I don't own Harry Potter,**

**And neither do you (unless your J.K. Rowling of coase).**

Chapter 2: The Recovery

As we left him Harry Potter had just fought in an unknown battle with some very dark curses. The Horcrux and the charms had been completely destroyed while the lycanthropy curse had been weakened. Harry normally had enough magic to heal himself after beatings from his uncle or Dudley and his gang but after going one on one with the werewolf curse (not that he had known) he and his magic were extremely exhausted. His world was still spinning dizzily as he steadied himself against a tree.

He had just enough energy left to get him through healing the small cut on his arm and to walk to his relatives' doorstep. Then, he was out cold.

_-line break-_

Harry woke up in the morning to the sun on his face and the sound of his aunt's muffled scream. He could feel a sheen of sweat on his forehead and he felt horrible. He was dragged inside with only the mutterings of, "Ungrateful freak" and "What if the neighbors saw". His Aunt barely paused to throw him into the small cupboard he called a room and left him there. He could still hear the whispers of his aunt and uncle in the kitchen loud and clear (which should have been impossible).

"What'll we do with the freak, the ungrateful brat obviously went and got himself sick." spat out his uncle Vernon through his walrus mustache.

Petunia started, "It's probably some kind of mag-"

"Don't say it!" he interrupted his wife.

"Fine! It's probably just some _freakish_ disease. We should just leave him in the cupboard, if he's not better by next week we'll take him to one of those free doctors for homeless children."

So that's what they did, they left Harry in the cupboard for the next three days with only his aunt coming in once a day to give him some water.

Since Harry's immune system was so weak it let the curse slowly integrate into his body to the point where his senses and fitness were affected along with his magic. It was unheard of for lycanthropy to affect someone like this. To help instead of damage.

Over the course of three of three days he went from and undernourished undersized weakling to a nine-year old power house. He was well on his way to over 5 feet tall. Harry was muscled all over but not to the point of being unnatural. His deep emerald eyes now had flecks of gold and amber in them and his scar was completely gone.

His magical potential had tripled overnight with the removal of the charm and the boost that the weakened lycanthropy gave him. As he woke up he could see and smell everything! It was amazing, to smell the dust and the wood, to see each individual grain in the planks on the ceiling even in the pitch darkness! It was the most amazing thing that Harry had ever experienced! He could smell even beyond that, he could smell Dudley who smelled like sweat and , with his father who smelled almost identical; he wrinkled his nose at the smell of the smog from all the cars just outside the house. Just beyond that he could smell the fresh pine scent of the woods.

As Harry reveled in his newfound senses, his aunt chose that time to open the cupboard door. As the light flowed in it burnt Harry's eyes and the loud ranting of his aunt hurt his now-sensitive ears. He flinched back from these unfamiliar things. The wolf in him was terribly confused and scared, and if you know anything about wolves it's to never back them into a corner. When his aunt made a move to hit him the wolf just about screamed for him to get out of there and Harry agreed.

His magic and lycanthropy worked together and forced his still unstable core to turn his body into his spirit animal. In a flash of light Harry transformed into a wolf as black as the night sky would be without the moon or the stars. He had a sleek look to him and he had aquired a lining of amber around his pupils that made his deep emerald eyes almost glow. Not that Harry noticed, all he was concerned with was getting as far away from danger as possible.

The blast of pure magic had thrown his aunt back and blown the front door open. The beautiful wolf made its way right out the door and streaked down the (thankfully empty) street.

A couple of miles into the woods Harry started to calm down. The only thing he could focus on was the wind in his fur and the warm sun on his muzzle as he thought, '_This_ is what true freedom is'.

**Please Review! Even if it's all bad I need SOMETHING! Also I apologize that some of this is really cliche for werewolf stories.**

**I've gotten reveiws that say the whole 'transforming into a wolf' thing wasn't clear. I tried to make it so the horcrux, the lycanthropy, and the magic depressors all fought each other. The horcrux and the spells were destroyed while the lycanthropy gets really weak. So BAM! The lycanthropy latches onto the closest sore of life; Harry's magic. Harry's magic was really weak too so it couldn't stop the curse and it turned into a "sort-of" animagus form hence the _'spirit animal'_.**


	3. Chapter 3: The Discovery

**Author's Note: I'm sorry for that last chapter, that wasn't even 1,000 words! Anyways let's get on with the story, Dumbledore's turn today!**

Chapter 3: The Discovery

When the alarms that were monitoring Harry Potter started going off Albus Dumbledore thought that it was just his relatives beating him and that they had gone a little too far and had hurt him, they had done it many times before. Or maybe it was just a scratched knee or some other common childhood injury. When the alarm went off a second time he was a little worried, what if they permanently damaged his precious weapon beyond what he wanted? A weak minded easily-molded Harry would be perfect but if they pushed him too far, could he break?

The alarms then started going crazy and the devices that were monitoring the magic-reducing charm and the tracking charm broke entirely. The alarm monitoring the Compulsion Charm, the one that fueled Harry's relatives hate for him, was silent which meant it was still operating. He decided to do a little scribe spell to see if there was any life altering injuries.

From what he could see there wasn't too much damage on him and he was just lying in his cupboard. 'The magic reducer must have broken because he was so gravely injured he needed magical healing,' he thought 'and then his magic must have broken the tracking charm.' As he thought this he turned down the contempt on the Compulsion Charm so the beatings wouldn't happen so often.

He then turned away without realizing that Harry was actually in the woods and it was just his magic that made the it look like he was in his cupboard under the stairs.

It was only three days later that Dumbledore heard his alarms go off once again. This time it was the boundary wards that told him if Harry left Surrey. His worry peaked as a tracking charm didn't work this time, so either Harry had a magic dampener on or his Magic Signature had changed. The latter being impossible Dumbledore assumed he had been kidnapped.

He tried a scribing charm one more time but he was only able to make out a small forest area that he recognized as just outside of Surrey. If he had looked for just a little longer he would have seen a flash of pitch black fur and a pinprick of emerald green through the brush.

-Line Break!-

A week later he had all of the Order of the Phoenix looking for Harry. He still hadn't told the public, he didn't want to cause the public to panic (or so he told himself). There was an Order meeting tonight and Dumbledore was really hoping beyond hope for some kind of sign that Harry was still alive. His name had even disappeared off of the list of students who were to attend Hogwarts. That meant he either called himself by another name or he was dead. But there was no more time for those thoughts; he had an Order meeting to run.

He threw some floo powder into his fireplace and stepped over the hearth and into the fire. As he came out on the other side he had the perfect look of omnipotence and grandfatherly like wisdom. All of his followers looked up at him with a look of hero-worship adoration on their faces. Well, almost all of them. One Remus Lupin had a look of great worry on his face and Moody looked annoyed. Dumbledore noticed such things before he started the meeting.

"As our first order of business, has anyone seen or heard anything relating to Harry Potter."

"Nothing as of yet Albus, we have managed to keep this away from Fudge's ears." Kingsley spoke for everyone.

Remus was still moping and the small flicker of hope that you could see if you looked very deeply into his eyes was put out, as the overwhelming loneliness and helplessness leeched back to the surface. "We've got to keep trying!" he desperately called out.

"I agree" stated Dumbledore with that glint of wisdom in his eyes.

Moody, however, was quick to object, "Why is this kid so important anyway? Just because he's the boy-who-lived doesn't mean that he gets special attention." He sent a disappointed expression to his dear friend to show his displeasure for just how far off the path of good that Albus had strayed. He didn't know just how far gone Albus was.

Dumbledore took note of Moody's tone and show of free will and remembered to put a few more Compulsion Charms on him. "Arthur I need you to put in a few more hours of your free time gather up a few more members to make a little search party to look for the boy some more. This is important than all of us, just remember that." He turned up the twinkle in his eye just for effect.

Moody sighed as he turned away, knowing that that meant they were dismissed. Arthur however stayed after to talk to Albus alone. His pay had just got cut once again and Fudge had laid off some more of his coworkers. He was afraid he'd be next or that the whole Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department would be shut down. Even now he was only just getting by with his measly paycheck of 2 galleons an hour (10 pounds or $8.50). That was barely enough to support his family and with five kids in Hogwarts and two more who were starting soon he didn't know what to do.

As he approached Dumbledore he started to doubt himself 'Why would he pay me to work for the Order, I'm not even important.' But this was his only chance left and he would be damned if he couldn't support his family! With that little mental pep talk he kept on going.

"Albus I've been meaning to talk to you," he started "there's been some cut-backs in the ministry and I was hoping that, maybe, you could, I dunno, loan me some money?" he trailed off.

"I don't know Arthur, money's been tight lately and I don't think there is any to spare." Truthfully he was just siphoning it off to fund his own research, for the greater good, of course.

"I just don't know how I'll be able to send Ron and Ginny to Hogwarts with my paycheck now." Arthur said.

Dumbledore's eyes lit up and an idea started forming in his head. "Your son and daughter are going at about the same time that Harry would be attending, correct?"

"That's right sir, Ron would be in the same year as him and Ginny the year after." Arthur proudly replied.

Dumbledore thought it through and weighed the consequences but he decided that if Harry came back into the magical world he would need all the tools he could get. The two youngest Weasleys would be perfect for the role. If they were to be Harry's best friends or for Ginny, something more they would need to attend Hogwarts first.

"Mr. Weasley I think that there would be enough money in the budget to assist you if you were to work for a couple more hours a day. After all we need to make sure that the children get an education, don't we." He finally replied.

"Oh thank you Sir! Just wait until I tell Molly!" Arthur said as he pranced off to the fireplace to floo home.

Albus smirked as Arthur left the room and just hoped that Harry would come back so he could sculpt him into the perfect weapon with his brand-new tools.

**Anyway for those of you who aren't as obsessed with Harry Potter as I am:**

**Fudge: Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge.**

**Moody: Mad-eye Moody, long-time friend of Albus Dumbledore and a member of the Order of the Phoenix.**

**Arthur/ Mr. Weasley: Arthur Weasley, head of Weasley family and an employee of the Ministry. (I rhymed!)**

**Kingsley: Kingsley Shacklebolt, Auror for the Ministry and Member of the Order.**


	4. Chapter 4: Freedom

**Authors Note: **

**That last chapter was more like it! This chapter is the one I've really been looking forwards to. Thank you for reviewing!**

Chapter 4: Freedom

While Albus Dumbledore was plotting for control Harry was relishing in the lack of it. When Harry was little he was scared of the woods, now as he frolicked through it, all of his dread seemed like the silly fears of a child, and in a way, they were. He was a wolf now and that made him the king of this forest.

Harry was as free as the birdsong that whistled through the air. As free as the wind that caressed his fur and swayed in the trees. He was as free as the ice cold water that snaked through the river bed on its way to the ocean. He felt as though he could fly as high as the Hawks that wheeled through the sky high above and at the same time he could slip through the cool water as easily as the Carp that swam along the river at the pace of the clouds that were so high in the air. They were the same clouds that were close brothers to the Hawk and the wind. They all played wonderful games of tag in the heavens. Always so close to each other and at the same time so far away. Only getting fleeting touches before running away one again.

Now Harry was part of this beautiful song that nature sang every day. Every night he would add his piece by singing his soul out to the moon. Sometimes he would sing alone, and sometimes there would be a duet with a far-off voice that was unknown to him. Such a wonderful song it would be. But also filled with such loneliness that every creature that heard would go silent for the poor soul that has only one song to sing. For it to be such a desolate tune broke their hearts.

Harry's days were lonely but he was used to that. He had never even had a friend before, so he thought that that it would never change. He would always remain lonely and friendless. The wolf inside him told a different story and the wolf inside was the one that sang on his behalf, every night. That same haunting song. Through his loneliness he found something that was worth all the suffering; freedom. Such freedom could not be described by words alone, you would have to hear the birdsong, feel the wind, and be brothers with the clouds and the wind and the Hawk just to understand the majesty that Harry witnessed every waking moment. The pain in his heart could be bared if only to stay free.

One of these lonely nights Harry heard more voices than he had ever heard before and closer than he had ever been to his own kind. His curiosity demanded that he investigate. He ran as fast as he could to the chorus of howls and what he found made his heart soar. There before him was at least a dozen of his kin singing their own songs to the moon, songs that rang of loyalty and devotion. You only had to listen to a single note to know that they would do anything for their pack.

As Harry approached the pack of wolves he realized that he was bigger than every wolf there. He was probably upward of 4 feet! All of the other wolves were very cautious of him but it looked as if they could tell from his body language that he meant no harm. They started to look at him with as a possible protector instead of a threat.

They circled him with calculating eyes and a clipped gate. _'They are judging us, looking for any faults that might jeopardize the pack.' _His wolf told him _'just stand up straight and look intimidating and they should accept us.'_

_'Accept us into what?' _he thought back.

Harry could see the wistful look that spread over the wolf's face as he said _'Into their pack, of course.'_

Harry's mind was going at a thousand miles per hour by now. When his wolf said the word 'pack' it was infused with a warm feeling that reminded him of 'happiness' but was completely different at the same time. _'Family'_ his wolf supplied, _'your thinking of the word family.'_ A dozen images flashed through his mind.

Images like a mother nursing her child, a den-mother nursing her cubs.

A brother teasing his sister next to an image of two cubs nuzzling in a den.

Two best friends walking side-by-side down the street and two den-brothers wrestling in a field.

Some human and some lupine, but all of them had the same sense of devotion and love, saturated with an overwhelming dose of family. And Harry wanted it, he wanted it like nothing else. A den-brother to wrestle with and a mother to nurture him. He didn't care if they were animal or not. He needed it like the air he breathed.

The wolves seemed to come to a decision as Harry came to this realization. They seemed to nod to each other and Harry finally felt his wolf start to translate their language to English for him.

_'Midnight wolf, we have assessed you and have found you worthy. We offer a place in our pack in return for your protection.'_ A gruff voice spoke in his head at the same time as a large gray wolf stepped forward.

Harry wanted this, oh how he wanted this but he couldn't figure out how to respond. He started to panic and it showed in his eyes. _'Calm down, young one. I sense that you are new to this life. I can see that your very soul has been placed on an edge between two-legs and four. I can see that your heart strains one way while your brain pushes you to the other side another.'_ The gray wolf's steady voice calmed Harry to his very core. _'It is your decision on which side you will fall. I offer a place of safety here if you chose to follow your inner wolf. Come back tomorrow tonight when our Queen calls, and make sure to return with your final decision.'_

Harry wanted to think this over but his mind was already made up. After all he was still only nine-years old. His thought process made everything easy. Since he had tried to be human he could try to be a wolf. It was that simple. _'Why not?'_ he reasoned with himself '_Worst case scenario; I don't like it and I go off on my own again.'_ His wolf growled at the idea of being alone. The wolf was a pack animal and he could tell that Harry needed a pack too, after being alone most of his life.

Then and there Harry decided to officially decide to join the wolf pack.

**I know, I know. Cliff hangers are awful and that makes me an awful person. Please don't send any wolf packs after me! **

**Do you like Dumbledore chapters? Should I do more with the wolf pack or go straight to Hogwarts? Please Review!**


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